In the latest ‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’ recap, the body count rises as the Butcher re-appears in more than one way…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
I don’t believe in ghosts.
It’s a funny thing to admit considering how much I enjoy horror films and television series like ‘American Horror Story’ because the sensation of being frightened is something I’ve always enjoyed. That being said, horror films and TV shows that circle around the supernatural have always entertained me, but I’ve never actually believed in ghosts, hauntings or possession.
But I can only imagine my reaction if one day it was all made real.
That’s exactly what the people involved in “Return to Roanoke: Three Days in Hell” are experiencing during this season of ‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’. The actors and actresses cast to re-enact the grisly encounters with ghosts that Matt and Shelby Miller lived through never believed any of what they were doing was actually real. It was a story meant to stir up ratings and give the audience a good scare.
But as we witnessed on the latest episode, Matt, Shelby and Lee were back inside a living nightmare while the actors who played them on the TV show version were finding out in graphic detail exactly what their counterparts went through the last time they lived in this house from hell.
There were threats both from the supernatural world and the corporeal world and it all ended with a lot of blood being spilled.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’ titled ‘Chapter 7’…
The Butcher Returns
The episode picks up this week inside the production trailer for “Return to Roanoke” as Sydney the producer watches in awe while Matt and Dominic get into a full blown fist fight after the actor arrived at the house, much to the surprise of everybody else. Dominic slept with Shelby Miller after the show wrapped and her marriage with Matt ended as a result.
So seeing the real life drama play out on camera was like a dream come true for the producer behind this “reality show”. Unfortunately his celebration was short lived after a production assistant went outside and shrieked in terror just a few seconds later.
Sydney and his cameraman followed and discovered the production assistant had her throat slashed and she was bleeding out on the ground. The culprit wasn’t a supernatural being looking for vengeance but instead it was Agnes Mary Winstead — the actress who played “The Butcher” on the show and it was clear she could no longer tell the line between reality and fiction.
Agnes then appeared and sliced into both Sydney and the cameraman with her cleaver as she looked to sequelize “My Roanoke Nightmare” with her own special brand of horror.
Back at the house, Audrey is looking for her husband Rory while Matt continues to insist that he’s dead because the giant MURDER on scrawled on the wall has finally been finished after all these years. When Audrey and the others make it upstairs, they find the spot where Rory was sliced and diced by the killer nurses, but his body is gone and all that’s left is a pile of blood.
While Dominic believes the blood is real, Audrey quickly realizes that her husband isn’t actually dead — he left the show to go do a movie and this whole thing was staged by Sydney as a way to “write” him off the series. Audrey is beyond angry while cursing Rory for leaving her and effectively ending their marriage.
Little does she know that he’s actually dead and not coming back.
The Bad Guy
With everyone under the impression that the bloodstain upstairs was part of an elaborate prank set up by Sydney to scare everybody, Dominic takes some time to go into the confessional booth to explain his arrival on the show. It seems Sydney outfitted him with a special body cam to catch all the action in the house while he stirs up shit like the villain he was always meant to be.
Dominic can’t help but remember that every great reality show “star” was made by being the bad guy and now he’s ready for his close up to add onto that villainous legacy.
Outside the house, Agnes has been hiding out in the cellar that once housed Dr. Elias Cunningham and there she films her own confessionals by torch light. There she laments about killing the production assistant, who was a new mother at the time, but then quickly switches back into the Butcher and says that every drop of blood spilled is just meant to consecrate this land that always belonged to her anyways.
In other words, Agnes is bat shit crazy.
Of course it doesn’t help much when her lights go out and come back on and Agnes is surrounded by the creepy branch symbols that once decorated the inside of Matt and Shelby’s house like something out of “The Blair Witch Project”. This doesn’t scare Agnes off, however, and instead only seems to fuel her that much more as she goes back to the house to continue her slaughter.
Next up is Shelby, who Agnes finds alone in her bedroom before confronting her with a bloody cleaver in hand.
Shelby tries to talk Agnes down but alas it doesn’t work and she gets a cleaver slice across her shoulder when trying to run. Just when it looks like Agnes will finish her off, Dominic runs into the room, tosses her into a mirror knocking her house and then goes to check on Shelby. When Dominic gets up again and turns around, Agnes is gone.
With Shelby injured and bleeding badly with no sign of assistance coming from Sydney or the production team, Lee decides to take it upon herself to go look for help. Lee also brandishes the gun she brought along for protection as Audrey and Monet decide to go along with her.
Unfortunately with Agnes gone and still likely lurking nearby, they decide to take the underground tunnel that Matt and Shelby once used to get out of the house but when the venture into the dark, a figure emerges at the other end. Is this the real Edward Phillippe Mott?
We won’t know for sure because Lee unloads four bullets into the shadowy figure but it doesn’t go down. So the trio runs back out as quickly as possible before escaping into the woods outside.
They eventually find the production trailer and that’s when they discover Sydney and his grew gutted and dead. The horror is almost too much to take but they don’t get a moment to rest as Agnes finally reappears with her cleaver in hand. This time Lee takes her shot and hits the target and Agnes goes down as they all escape back out into the woods as they go to try and find help in the town that sits a full five miles away.
Sadly, they never make it to town nor do they make it back to the house.
Witchy Woman
Back at the house, Matt consoles an injured Shelby while they discuss the state of their marriage. Matt tells Shelby that it wasn’t her infidelity that made him leave, but instead he says they started to fall apart the day they moved into this house.
Later that night after falling asleep on the bed together, Matt wakes up in a strange trance and walks downstairs before making his way to the basement. Dominic wakes up on a couch in the living room and follows behind Matt as he walks into the basement where he meets up with his favorite witch — Scathach (the character previously played by Lady Gaga).
It doesn’t take Matt long to fall back into her arms and the two of them start having sex while Dominic runs back upstairs to fetch Shelby. Maybe he’s trying to stir up trouble or perhaps attempting to show Shelby what her husband is really like, but he takes her downstairs where she witnesses Matt having sex with the witch.
Shelby freaks out and Matt wastes no time telling his wife that he didn’t come back to the house for her — he came back for Scathach because she’s the one he loves. In a moment of rage, Shelby grabs a crowbar from the wall and goes full Negan on Matt’s head, turning his skull into a pile full of bloody mush.
Meanwhile, outside in the woods Lee, Audrey and Monet are running towards the town when they see a set of torches coming towards them from a distance. Lee knows this is the real Butcher and her Roanoke clan so she tells everybody to run and hide to avoid them.
Once the reach a clearing, Audrey is making her own confessional to Rory while expressing her love when blood starts to drip on her face. When she looks up, Audrey finds Rory hanging from a tree above them, gutted and now leaking down onto the ground below. She’s horrified but her terror is short lived because the trio are then captured by the real Polk family, who have shown up for the first time since Matt and Shelby faced off with them a couple of years ago.
Tainted Meat
Inside the Polk family home, Grandma Polk seasons Lee’s leg as she gets ready to turn her guest into jerky while her “boys” taunt Audrey and Monet in another room. While we don’t see what happens to Lee’s leg after Grandma Polk stabs her, she shows back up in the other room with a dog food bowl with strips of meat inside.
She serves up Lee’s leg to Audrey and Monet and forces them to turn cannibal and eat the meat.
Back at the house, Dominic is trying to calm Shelby down after she realizes that she just murdered her own husband. Dominic attempts to convince her to turn herself in because with cameras all over the house and a production crew just a couple of miles away, there’s no way she’s going to get away with this crime.
Before Dominic can deal with the situation or Shelby can fully come to terms with what she’s done, they hear shouting from outside. It’s Agnes — she pulled out the slug from her shoulder after being shot by Lee and now she’s returned with gas cans to burn down the house once and for all.
Agnes chants and shouts outside, but she fails to see the torches lit up behind her and drawing close. When she finally realizes what’s happening, Agnes believes these are her people come to serve the Butcher — except there’s one problem. The real Butcher is leading her ghastly mob and she’s not interested in a fan girl pretender who worships her. Agnes falls to her knees, but that only give the Butcher a clean shot as she slices through her head with a cleaver of her own.
Dominic and Shelby watch in horror from upstairs as the real Butcher is back and she’s out for blood.
‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’ returns next Wednesday night at 10pm ET on FX.
